The Lincoln Highway, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year, winds a curious course through Stockton. All the more curious because it is forgotten, buried like an asphalt fossil.

"Get outta here," said Gabriel Medrano.

Medrano lives on Maple Street, a typical residential side street off Pacific Avenue.

But in 1913, Maple was a stretch of the first transcontinental highway, a novel road stretching 3,389 miles from New York to San Francisco. Neither Madrano nor his neighbors knew they live on that piece of history.

They already did. In June, about 70 antique cars chuffed through Stockton on the Lincoln Highway Centennial Tour.

The Lincoln Highway was the brainchild of Carl Fisher, an Indiana manufacturer of automobile headlights and founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

At a time when most Americans traveled by train, Fisher foresaw the American autorama. But America had fewer than 200,000 miles of "improved" roads.

Congress wouldn't fund such projects. So Fisher raised money. After his scouts found the best route, he paid for stretches of "seedling roads." Local communities built the rest.

The resulting road departed New York's Times Square, jounced through 13 states and 700 towns and arrived at San Francisco's Lincoln Park.

It was a 20- to 30-day adventure, given a Model T's cruising speed of 28-30 mph.

"Every American motorist has within him something of the feeling that prompted our pioneer forefathers to explore the new and unknown," the Lincoln Highway Association wrote.

In San Joaquin County, the highway dropped down Lower Sacramento Road all the way to Maple Street, jogged over to El Dorado Street, veered along Turnpike Road to Eighth Street and left town southbound on Manthey Road.

The Lincoln Highway Association published a 1913 tour book listing Stockton, 3,252 miles from Times Square and 79 from San Francisco, a city of 41,000 with 16 hotels and 22 garages.

"Local speed limit 20 mph, enforced," the guide advises.

The Hotel Stockton, newly built in 1910, was listed as an "odometer control point" - presumably a cross between a milestone and a major landmark.

The guide also says there was good fishing (salmon fishing, mind you) and duck hunting in the San Joaquin River near French Camp.

The highway ran through Stockton until 1927. That year, the road bypassed the city in favor of the newly opened Carquinez Bridge.

But the 14 years it traversed Stockton spurred development of Pacific Avenue and other districts.

A 1920s photograph shows commercial buildings such as a filling station and giant orange at Pacific and Maple where only years before there had been farms.

In fact, the highway transformed American transportation and culture. Highways became synonymous with freedom and fun. Jack Kerouac roared down the Lincoln Highway in "On the Road."

A young soldier named Dwight Eisenhower rode in a 1919 Army convoy along the Lincoln Highway. Eisenhower was later inspired enough by the trip to champion the largest public works project in American history, 41,000 miles of interstate highways.

Stocktonian Kevin Shawver has launched a campaign to mark the Lincoln Highway's route through Stockton with historic signs.

"This town has been in love with the wrecking ball for too long," Shawver said. "Nothing is really being done to preserve history. It was an important part of Stockton's history, that's for sure."

Throw your top down and visit the Stockton's Historical Lincoln Highway Signage Project on Facebook.

At least 17 other groups are traveling the highway this year. These include vintage trailer owners, deaf motorcyclists and European owners of vintage American cars. These latter aficionados are having their rides shipped to America.

Not all may take the original route. But at least some may rumble down Maple Street. As well as Pacific Avenue and El Dorado Street, and a half-dozen other Stockton streets. Keep your eyes peeled.